Wednesday, February 15, 2017

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There's injustice everywhere. Our band can't fix all of it. But we can do what we can do. So, we are.

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Antigone Rising & The Bangles

Recently, Antigone Rising formed a nonprofit called Girls Rising. The idea to start a 501c3 was born backstage while we were on tour with The Bangles a few years back. We got to talking about how so few all female bands existed. And we wondered why. With Susannah Hoffs.

As soon as we finished realizing the travesty of that thought, we got to thinking a few more things.

Girl Scouts with Girls Rising!

Girls don't see too many female CEOs of major corporations, or all that many airline pilots or NASA astronauts or chemical engineers or architects or pastors in churches or major league baseball players. They don't see female Presidents, at least not in the United States of America, and if they do see female soccer players, they see ones who are grossly underpaid compared to their male counterparts.

So we decided as a band that it was time for us to do more than travel from town to town playing songs for free dinners, in the hopes of selling a few CDs, greedily lining our pockets with memories, counting on our lucky fans to support us through web based fundraising campaigns.

Girls Rising Outreach

maybe they will hear us say something that helps them see something,

like a little light through a crack in the ceiling

they didn't see before we came to visit

Instead, we would start a nonprofit. And we would travel from town to town playing songs for free lunches in schools and youth centers all around the world. And we would talk to girls and boys to let them know that women can play instruments and be astronauts and engineers and scientists and brain surgeons and anything they want to be. Even Presidents. Of the United States. One day. Because, actually, nobody is telling them that. Or at least not enough people are.

Girls Rising Outreach, Berlin

And we still get to ask our fans to donate money, but now the money goes toward us helping girls see things they might not usually see. Or maybe they will hear us say something that helps them see something, like a little light through a crack in the ceiling they didn't see before we came to visit.

There's injustice everywhere. Our band can't fix all of it. But we can do what we can do. So, we are.

If you want to learn more about the work we are doing with our nonprofit, Girls Rising, go to our website GirlsRising.Org.

If you have an idea on where we can do an outreach to help empower girls to harness their potential and be game changers, get in touch with us at infoATgirlsrising.org.

And if you'd like to make a tax deductible donation to Girls Rising, you absolutely can and should by going to GirlsRising.Org/Donate